Comparisons and Improvements

For comparison's sake...

O on the lunge in June:

And O today:

Holy moley. She is one big beefy muscular girl! No flab on this momma, she's rippling muscle all over. She had a GREAT work on the lunge today... the canter is looking really great for her. She's really counterbent in that above picture, but I altered the lines some after I took the picture and straightened her out. We did a lot of work on insisting she canter at a reasonable pace, and that when she transitions downward from the canter, we slow it down into a normal trot instead of a Standardbred zoomy trot. She's a quick study and she picks up things very quickly, although sometimes she has a battle in her brain about whether or not she agrees with the idea - you can tell by her expression in the canter picture that she's not sure that a nice slow canter is really the speed she'd like to be going. 

I am SO happy to report that her behavior has done a 180 since giving her the extra tummy support. I feel very fortunate that I know this horse well enough to know when something isn't quite right with her, and to act on it quickly. She doesn't hide anything, she was more or less screaming that something wasn't right - walking away and sulking in the corner of her pen whenever I showed up was a pretty clear "go away leave me alone I don't feel great." That was really abnormal for her. Today, after 2 days of her yummy tummy, she was practically crawling over the fence to get to me. She was on top of me when I picked out their pen, she put her head in my arms when we were grooming, and she left her haybag to come insist that I hold her head and rub her nosey while I was leaning up against the fence chatting with S (an unsolicited move on her part... I wasn't paying attention and suddenly she was there, going excuse me it's time to pay attention to me now.) She is inhaling her food and licking the bucket clean, and wolfing down all the hay in sight. 

I may be neurotic about gastric health, but it pays off. I think back to Metro when he was showing similar symptoms (this was a decade ago now, holy crap!!), and how I wrote his behavior off as being a jerk, his sheath needed to be cleaned, he didn't like his bit, I was sitting crooked, he needed groundwork. Turns out, he had kicking raging ulcers and I had no idea even though all the symptoms were staring me in the face (big hay belly and ribs, lots of little colics, random acting out behaviors under saddle). If I had known then what I know now, things would have been very different. And if I knew now only what I had known then, I'm sure O would already be in a total downward spiral of ulcery doom, and god knows she would be SERIOUSLY hateful with actual ulcers. 

Symptoms as vague as "well she doesn't want much to do with me when I show up" don't readily lend themselves to looking like an actual problem. If I were less neurotic and weird I probably would have just chalked it up to her being cranky and in heat. That said, I'm a pretty firm believer that they're always trying to tell us all sorts of things if we'd just take the time to listen to them... in this case I'm glad I stopped and thought about it a little more. 

Share Your Barn Blog Hop - The Barebones Edition

It's time for a blog hop of barn tours! Ever wonder where your horsey Blogger friends spend most of their day? Want to show off the amazing place you get to keep your fur child? Now is your chance to share and get to know your friends just a little bit more!

Here's how it's going to work; its simple and fun!

Share with us the following 5 photos:

A View of the Barn
Your Horse's Living Space
The Tack Room
View of Where You Ride
Your Favorite Feature of Your Facility




I *had* to join the blog hop, because our operation is BAREBONES at best. And also, it is the BEST.

If you want to see a TRULY incredible facility, go check out the one I used to manage when I lived in CT. Now THAT place was unreal beautiful.

HOWEVER. Since that time, I have changed almost all of my management practices. My horses are SO much happier, super sound, and super well cared for, even though our facility is humble and small at best. We do not need big fancy stalls and big fancy arenas. Sure, they're pretty and all, but who is benefiting from all of that - us or them?

1) A view of the barn

Yep, there you go. That's the entire barn. There are four big stalls (12x15), one of which is filled with random storage things. The horses don't go in the stalls except for random things (feeding if we're being lazy, it's a tornado outside, etc). There's a feed room that is filled with the best quality timothy/orchard/alf that we can get - we have it shipped in from WA or OR. There are two big paddocks with horse-safe pipe fence, one of which belongs to my mares. There is an additional 15 acres of native pasture that S's horses run on, and sometimes mine run on too. 

2) Your horse's living space

My mares have it MADE. A huge run-in shed with soft sand to sleep in, a big tank with fishies in it, and two or three big huge bags of slow-netted high quality hay that they have in front of them 24/7. There are rocks and weeds and bushes and some trees in and around their pen. What horse wouldn't want to live there! I am very lucky to be able to offer this kind of arrangement to them. I can't ever imagine having horses in stalls after seeing how happy and healthy they are living out all the time. 

3) In the tack room

HA! Tack room. That's funny. 

I groom in the barn, then lead up to my trailer, tie and tack there and off we go. Tack doesn't stay in the barn because there is nowhere to lock it up, and also the kitties like to scratch on saddles... no bueno.

4) Where you ride:

Wherever there is relatively flat and un-potholed ground. Those are ground poles. Actually they are big sticks cleaved in half. 

We have a 15 acre pasture that has a flat upper portion, and that's where I do most of my flatwork and lunging. (I don't recommend lunging in a wide open space, but you do what you have to do.) I do flatwork down by the barn sometimes, but it is on a hill so it's not great. We have somewhere between 50-100 acres of awesome cattle pasture directly behind us that we have access to and ride on all the time - we have jumps set up and everything. Across the road is a field that we mowed and set up a dressage arena in (or well, we have measured cones, it's close enough). We have miles of quiet roadway to hack down. We trailer out to arenas when we need to, but we often don't need to. We make the best of what we have - we ride rain or shine!

5) My favorite feature

What DON'T I love about this situation? It's quiet. It's private. It's self-care - S and I are the only ones there and we take care of each other's horses. We feed whatever we want, however much we want. We only feed the best stuff, and I can afford to do that because I don't pay board. We have a Theraplate, which is excellent. The horses get to live out all the time and they love it. We have a lot of beers and go ride all day sometimes. 

Yeah, we don't have an arena, and sometimes that sucks. It's a solid half-hour away and that's an annoying drive to make every day. But these are very small sacrifices to make. I've been here officially a year now, and this is the longest I've stayed at a barn since I've owned horses, literally. 13 years of horse ownership ya'll. That's a LOT of barn moving. I am a hateful boarder, I am horrible to deal with because I tend to be  constantly picking about details and I can't deal with ignorance or laziness. Picky is a cute and polite term for it... maybe a more accurate description would be 'hatefully OCD.' I was a fantastic barn manager because I am a neverending whirlwind around the barn, always fixing and improving things, always changing a blanket out here, altering a feed schedule there. But when my horses are not under my direct care and supervision - if I am not laying my hands on them EVERY day, or if I don't know they are in seriously competent care - I am not happy.

In summary... it's not fancy, but our horses look ridiculously incredibly awesomely good and they are happy and healthy. They are all rippling muscles and gleaming. There isn't a single vice in our barn, not one. No lamenesses, no colics (ok, knock on wood for this one... not one lameness or colic YET I should say!). They are all performance horses and we ride them HARD, so things can and do happen, but even when things teeter around on the edge of a problem - like with O coming back after her ride on the edge of having a gastritis - our situation is excellent for curbing those kinds of things and keeping them at bay. Two days of aloe/slippery elm/marshmallow root/bentonite and munching hay and my horse is brilliantly vivacious again. 

So really, what more could I ask for? 

(I tried to do that linked in code thing. Unfortunately I am computer illiterate and have the patience of a rabid squirrel, so I gave up trying after about 3 minutes.)

By the way, speaking of places to ride, check out adorable little Tre on a trail ride today...

She is so cute it's criminal. Don't you just want to squeeze her??

Guts

Well that was a vague title.

I don't think O has been quite right in the gastric department. I think this was stirring a bit before the last ride - she has started to be a little weird about catching, like when you show up she turns and goes to the far corner of her pen, which basically means "go away leave me alone." I had thought this was because S had been doing a lot of the feeding, and she and S do not remotely get along, but I'm wondering if it wasn't something else instead. S doctored her some when she got bit by the dog last month, and I'm under the impression she gave her a lot of bute and dex in the process. She may have been (and may still be) teetering on the edge of a gastric problem following that. Normally she is very friendly and walks up to you in the pen, you don't usually have to go get her yourself.

She's not ever really been a ravenous hoover. She cleans all of her grain meals up, but she wastes quite a lot of hay, and if there is a speck of dirt on her hay, she spits it out and refuses to finish it. She has to be really hungry in order to eat the hay that she has decided doesn't taste good enough. I always give them fresh clean hay in their nets every day (and part of why it is netted is because if she puts her feet on her hay, she won't eat it!), but if they don't finish what is in a bag, sometimes I make them clean it up and MAN that makes her angry. She will just sniff the hay and then stand there and glare at me. If she is REALLY pathetic, she'll walk around nickering at me like she's just STARVING, and how CRUEL I am for letting her STARVE, that hay that is 1 day old is POISON. The horses I've had in the past that got hay meals instead of 24/7 hay have always been just RAVENOUS whenever they were fed, ulcers or not, because they knew that was all they were getting and they better snarf it up. My current horses know there will always be hay there, no matter what, so they are content to eat some, then mill around, then eat some, then take a nap, then eat some. (This actually is very stressful for me... every time they are not eating, I am freaking out. They are FINE but it still freaks me out!)

She's been a bit ehh about eating this past week. She is eating, but she is also just standing around a lot not eating. It's probably just me being super paranoid about it, but I think she's been a little dull this week too. Time to get aggressive, just in case.

She'll have a few days off while she gets dosed with aloe/bentonite/marshmallow root/slippery elm mixed in with hay pellets - a sort of 'yummy tummy' meal that she'll get additional to her regular meals. If that helps, yay and we can progress on from there. If that doesn't help, she gets more aggressive treatments with Omeprazole/Ranitidine. If THAT doesn't help, then I need to take a Xanax and stop assuming my horse has a gut problem. She inhaled her tummy meal today and her regular grain meal as well, was very perky when grooming, and then wasn't really too interested in hay again afterwards (which isn't really unusual). She ate a fair amount, but then wandered off to be alone. Tre must have been REALLY HUNGRY because normally she is O's shadow and never leaves her side:

See what I mean? TINA EAT YOUR FOOD.

I'd rather nip this thing in the bud before it ever actually becomes a problem - because this horse will be a DEMON HELLCHILD if she ever actually gets burning ulcers - so she'll have off for however long she needs to get herself back together. It's a delicate balance... she's a hellchild when she's not getting enough work too, so here's hoping this sorts itself out within short order.

Aside from that, I have a very small cute Texas Warmblood to play with!

Geez she is cute. I kind of can't believe nobody has snatched her up yet - if she were a hand taller she'd be gone already. Some days I am all about selling and moving her on, and some days (like today) I really would like to keep her because of how insanely adorable and talented she is. 

I am still brooding over my yearly goals. I suppose there's no *real* rush to get them up... and it's also very hard to solidify then when you're not really sure of what you actually want. Some days I want to get back to trying to event O, some days I don't. Some days I want to sell Tre (and SHOULD sell her), some days I want to keep her and event. 

It really all boils down to cash. Life is expensive. Starting and running a business is expensive. Feeding horses is expensive. Showing horses is extra expensive. Looking into the future and wondering if you'll really ever be able to afford your first house is depressing. Wondering if you should just elope instead of have a wedding because it is too expensive is depressing. Firmly telling yourself you need to sell your cute little future eventer because that's what you bought her for is depressing.
Being a responsible adult is hard. Where do you make the 'right' fiscally responsible choices, and where do you allow yourself a little leeway to have some fun? 

Pics from High Roller!

Got in our pics from High Roller!! 

I *had* to order the bloopers... they were just too good not to share. 

We were having a disagreement about speed, probably. "No, you can't run as fast as you want the entire way damnit."

Holding it together and looking good. But I have got to lose some WEIGHT!

Uppity uppity mare about halfway through our first loop... you can see how much she had sweated up and wasted energy getting all hot and bothered! And I am making some awkward sexy faces....

By the end she had really found her stride and had figured it out... fresh, happy mare cantering across the finish line at mile 25! Removed the boots and the sweater at the hold and we were both much happier for it. Notice we were still NOT on a long or loose rein... if I had let her go she would have been in Egypt by the time I had her back under control!

End of December Analysis; January Goals, and Musings on 2014

Well, our goals this month are a little belated but I figure I had a pretty good excuse for that!

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O-Ren December Goals:

1) Work on fitness - prep for the High Roller ride in January!!
Success! She was GREAT for the ride and I felt like we were decently conditioned for it. I had a fresh horse cantering across the finish line, and she is sound and happy (and tired). There is more conditioning to be done, of course, but now that I have *actually* done a ride I understand more of what goes into it (for both of us), and can prepare accordingly.

2) Work on improving the canter - work on the lunge and progressing to work under saddle
We definitely worked on this on the lunge, and cantered A WHOLE FREAKING LOT under saddle... it just wasn't in dressage tack, in a bit, or in a dressage-y manner. I am happy with the work we did on the lunge, and think that this is very important for her - she needs to learn to balance herself on the lunge first at the canter without zooming around before we add a rider. And when I am out conditioning her and cantering a lot - and we do canter A LOT! - I have tried to vary between keeping her slow and together, and moving forward. The hackamore is great for this as I can actually rate her, something I can't do in a simple snaffle. When we get back to dressage-y work, I think I will be riding her in a pelham - something with the same mouthpiece, but something with a little extra e-brake in case we continue to be bargey.

3) Dressage work - progress in training as well as compliment fitness work
We didn't really do this like I had originally planned, but I have a better idea of what needs to be done now, and so therefore can set future goals accordingly!

4) Fun stuff too! Barrels/poles/driving/etc!
We did some of this, but not too much... some patterning on barrels for fun!

5) Make sure all tack/boots/etc are squared away for higher mileage rides - everything needs to be chafe-free! 
Success! Or well, for the time being, sort of. The bridle/hackamore (with fleecy), breastcollar (with fleecys), girth (which is fleecy), saddle (with fleecy cover), and pad (shock absorbing no-rub-anywhere pad), are all working well for her, and are all obviously fleecy-ified out. The saddle is TOO HEAVY though, at at some point we will have to consider a new saddle. As for the boots, well... the ONLY thing I've been able to ride her in without major rubbing or spinning issues is a cruddy old pair of Cavallo Simples - literally everything else I have tried either rubs her raw, doesn't stay on, or doesn't fit. The Cavallos are bulky but they weren't rubbing at all... until the actual ride itself. Now she has two enormous totally raw spots from the boots. Great.... more brainstorming is needed.


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O-Ren January Goals:
1) Prep for our next ride in February - more conditioning, more miles! Be really prepared fitness-wise. 
2) Make sure to figure out elyte and gastric support for the next ride! Really failed on this one at High Roller, absolutely must do better at the next one.
3) More brainstorming and experimenting about footwear... experiments, experiments.... 
4) Work on the lunge in the Faux-ssoa - specifically CANTERWORK, and map out a plan for dressage work!
5) Freejump if we can, and amp up the height!

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As for Miss Tre, I am not going to do goals on her. I had to have that firm talk with myself that yes, I bought her as a sales horse, and yes, because of this she MUST be sold, she can't stay even if she is adorable because that's not what I bought her for. She is super great, really really awesome, and because of that she is going to be very salable. Luckily she is a solid hand too small for me, which makes it easier to focus on prepping and selling versus keeping her! This mare would love love love to have a little girl of her own, and that's the kind of home I hope to find for her. Her sweet and adorableness is wasted on me - I like them spicy!

Speaking of spicy, not sure if you can see this photo (you may have to click on the agreement to view photos, no charge or anything just granting permission!) of O totally wigging out on the way out of camp.... I'm definitely going to order some of these so I can share with you all! This fatty has got to lose some weight... not remotely amused with the way I look in the saddle, even if I was wearing several layers. 

As for 2014, I am still musing on what I want to really solidly set my goals as. Obviously my 2014 goal for Tre is to find her a girl, but as for O, it's a little harder. She thinks endurance is the most excellent thing we could ever do, and is happy to RUN FASTER GO ALL DAY YAY GO MORE NOW GO FASTER. This unfortunately does not completely sate my desires - I still want to event, still want to do dressage. Or at least, I think I do. Do I? I'm not sure. Some days I am totally sure, and other days I am not. Dressage yes, if only for the purpose of I can't *not* do dressage... dressage is training, and training happens every day. Who doesn't want a light, responsive, confident horse that listens and moves with you no matter what? Dressage is training, dressage is creating longevity and soundness through strong backs and toplines that can carry a rider for long periods without fatigue. Dressage will ALWAYS be there in my life, because dressage always has to be there and dressage benefits everyone. The goals will become more concrete the more I think about them, but for sure, we want to keep doing endurance - LDs until we are comfortable, and then maybe try a 50 once we get everything together. In terms of dressage/eventery things, I think in January we will really work on the lunge and really get that canter going, February we'll be back to working w-t stuff and then get to honing that terrible awful no-good-very-bad zoom zoom canter. There is a beautiful, uphill, and slow canter in there, I have seen her do it... just trying to convince her to do it is the hard part. As we progress from there, we'll go to jumping more again, but we MUST get the canter work good before we jump. We MUST have a good canter. In the meantime, however, I intend to start free jumping! 

Thinking thinking... musing musing. Feel free to give me your input and ideas! 

Also, did I mention it was only 9 degrees here yesterday morning? 9. 9!! I know it's a LOT colder than that up north, but this is Texas... 9 degrees doesn't happen here. EVER. 

High Roller I Endurance Ride 1/4/14 (Part II)

Our night of debauchery behind us, O and I headed to the vetbox as soon as they opened up. I had gotten her to eat some hay pellet mush at around 4am, but she was too riled up in the morning to do more than flip her breakfast bucket over and spill her breakfast meal everywhere. She drank about 1/2 a bucket of water, which is pretty good for her! This will HAVE to improve in the future though.... the hotter it gets the more she just HAS to drink. Eventually I got tired of her freaking out (the 50s went out at 7am right in front of the trailer and this was SO MUCH for her brain) that I tied her up to the trailer for a few hours with a haybag so she'd quit running the fence. Last thing I needed was for her to go busting out and gallop off with the 50 milers!

I vetted in with a vet who thankfully was not the one who I stole the parking spot from, and later found out she and one of my clients are apparently besties and the client had been telling me all about her previously - small world! She sympathized with me about the oops-loose-horse-in-the-middle-of-the-night, and told me her own horse had gotten out a million times. (I *hope* my horse does not ever get out again but I'm sure it will happen! I saw like 12 loose horses... is that a thing at rides? There's always a loose horse at events but not THAT many!) O vetted in with all A's and one B+ for gut sounds, and off we went to saddle up. I continued trying to coax her to eat (EAT PLEASE EAT), and she did somewhat, but was more interested in watching all of the horses passing through the vet. Finally it was time to saddle up and head out!

They did a controlled start for us - we all followed some guy and his grey horse at a set speed until we reached the trail head, and then he let us roll on out. I started somewhere in the middle of all of the horses, and ended up passing most everybody within a mile or so. It wasn't long until I found myself in the company of two quick little Pasos and a lady with a big Arab/TB/Trakehner gelding (at least, I think that's what she said he was... he was a very nice looking mutt!). We kept partly in time with another lady on a PSYCHO Arab in front of us who kept blasting off ahead and then slamming on the brakes... he must have ended up being pulled because I never saw him again and he was ahead of us the entire time. The Pasos were in love with O and the younger girl spent most of her time riding along behind us with O's big red butt for motivation. I kept in time with the girl with the lovely mutt-horse for awhile, and may or may not have almost collided with her when the trail unexpectedly turned and I was not paying attention... oops. We spent most of the first 2 loops (purple to blue) chatting with each other, moving forward and falling back and generally keeping company with all the rest of the front runners, right where O wanted to be. She really has discovered the joy of cantering, and cantering is really all she'd like to do. This suits me well as it is SO comfortable to get up in half seat and just roll along with her smoothly - no bouncy posting. Bonus, she does clean changes back and forth from each lead of her own accord whenever we are turning or changing balance, how great is that! I can bump her from one lead to the next with a change of balance but as for a cue we don't have that yet. Our leg cues for canter still involve a head raise, an ugly face, and a surge forward... yeck. On the other hand, if you are out on the trail walking and you cluck quietly once at her, she's off trotting... if you cluck (or kiss) at her again, she's cantering. This really annoys the dressage person in me, but as for working on the trail, it's pretty darn convenient.

We rolled comfortably along for the first loop, and I was surprised when only a little more than an hour had passed and we were already back in camp. O had wasted a lot of energy getting charge-y on the first loop, and while she drank a few sips of water at the trough on the way in, she really didn't get too much in. She had also eaten less than I had hoped she would. We pulsed in immediately, vetted out with A's and several B's including a B- for gut sounds!! Not cool. Our hold was 45 minutes and I spent literally every second that I could trying to coax her to eat more. She wouldn't eat hay or mash, so I took her out and grazed her, and she perked up quite a bit with that. She wasn't getting her elytes in (that I had put in the mash, thinking she'd eat it), and I couldn't bring myself to dose her when she wasn't eating well. Of course, every second that a horse isn't gobbling food I start panicking and going OH MY GOD SHE HAS ULCERS. (I don't *actually* think she does, I think she was just amped up... but still.) Being the kind of horse that she is, I know I'll need to keep an eye on it, but I already manage this aspect of her life VERY VERY closely anyway so I think I am just hypersensitive about it.

Looking good at the hold. 

Once she had grazed, and had tanked up again at the water trough (thank god), I tacked her back up and out we went again. I was a few minutes slow getting it together after our hold, but headed out with a brisk horse who was ready for more action. (This is great - I've never unsaddled her and then resaddled and gotten back on, so she was more than happy to go "uhm ok? Sure, I think we just did this but I am up for some more.") We headed out with a group of 50 milers who were lagging behind a bit (remember, they started at 7am and it was now close to 11 and they were just heading out for their second loop), all of which were very friendly and helpful and giving out unsolicited advice (some of it was nice, some of it was more like "god damn it don't ever pass anyone ever unless you know them," which I think was a bit silly.) I left all the 50 milers behind for awhile until we came to a group of cows that were laying down. O has this really fun spook at her where she goes from trotting or cantering to teleporting sideways and backwards at the same time in one movement, and we were in the process of thrashing around in a blind panic because oh my god I've clearly never seen cows before, mom these are DEMON COWS, they are going to eat us alive! when the 50 milers caught back up and took us through the group of them. (Remember, O sees cows every day...)

Eventually, we caught up to a nice cowboy man and his young horse who was struggling to keep going. We matched up together, and being with another horse motivated his colt to keep moving on down the trail. (He said he thought he might have to walk back home because he had nothing left in his horse! Strangely enough, he ended up winning BC!) The cowboy man and I went on and trotted/cantered along to the finish, paying attention to the deep sandy spots (tons of them) and the mudholes (even MORE of those). I even convinced her to drink ON THE TRAIL! First time she has done that literally EVER. Near the 22 mile mark, there was  big stock pond, and I decided to stop and wade in - she tanked up! I came cantering home across the finish line with a fresh horse who was still pulling on me. She never went along on a loose rein and I never asked her to go more forward than she already was once... she just cruised along and made easy work of it all. She drank even more at the trough at the finish, and I led her to the vet feeling a bit like I was made of jelly. I finished fine, but Funder had hammered on me to eat and drink and I hadn't done a very good job of it. It's hard when you finish your loops in an hour and change, and you have a zoomy headstrong horse! The photographer probably has some great pictures of me fist pumping and then giving the devil horns, just for Funder (because she helped listen to my inane babble and questions for hours and hours and hours before and after the race!)

O pulsed in right away and was perky for the vet. All of her vet scores got raised, all A's and one B+ for gut sounds! I was so excited about that, and about the fact that I had gotten her to drink! I unsaddled, threw a cooler on her, put her in her pen, and she got straight to eating her hay. She kept her muscles loose by doing a small walking circle every few minutes or so, then went back to munching. I collapsed in the front seat of my truck and watched her for a few minutes while I chugged some Gatorade and ate a Powerbar.

Looking fresh! Shortly after this she started trotting around... TROTTING AROUND.


I am still waiting on official times, but we finished 6th!!!!!!!!!!!!! A top ten for our FIRST ride ever!!!!

(One of TERA's members made a funny little video and we're in it, by the way - check it out!)

We went and stood for BC after an hour, and did quite well all things considered. I knew we weren't going to get it, but the vet was very complimentary and gave us a slew of 10s for things. We also got several 7s as her elytes were off (which I knew they had to be), and this changed some things with her gums and made her muscles a bit stiff in the back end. She was perfectly sound, just didn't really enjoy being poked by the vet. I will have to make sure this gets addressed, along with gastric support, for the next ride.


Sunday she was tired but not *that* tired, and I stuck her on the lunge to let her loosen up. She gave me kind of an ugly 'don't wanna' face, but did it anyway, and once she got to moving she loosened up and felt better. This mare wears her heart on her sleeve everywhere she goes, so I will always know if something isn't quite right. She is not going to push through her pain if she hurts, she is going to yell and scream at me about it to make sure I get the message. She has SUCH a red mare attitude. Her legs look great, she is eating well, and she is perky. Yesterday she was even brighter and perkier. (S said last night, "O's a much nicer horse when she's tired".... yes, yes she is.)


As for me, I am finally not feeling like I got run over by a bus. We need more conditioning, feeding, hydrating and elyting for the next one for sure!

High Roller I Endurance Ride 1/4/14 (Part I)

I have to do my monthly goals AND my yearly goals, BUT I have something more pressing to write about.... our first LD!!!!!!!!!!!

After our Intro ride in November, I knew I wanted to give an actual LD a try. I really wanted to do the last one in December in Waco, but when O fell out of the trailer and bonked her knees that idea went out the window. (I'm actually really glad I decided not to do that one - I chatted with people at this ride that said that  in order to complete the December ride your horse needed to be "part billy goat" with all the rocks and the steep climbs. Glad I decided not do it because I think she wasn't fit enough for that at the time!)

The High Roller ride was down south, somewhere north of Houston in the middle of nowhere. It was all rolling pasture and cow paths and sand, so I figured it was a great one for our first start. Ride times from previous rides were extremely fast (under 2 hours for LDs and around 4.5 for 50s!! I can't even understand that speed), so I figured the terrain must be easy and simple to negotiate. With all my fees and forms sent off to everyone involved, I gave O a dose of Ulcergard at 6am on Friday (so it would cover the trailer ride but be out of her system before the ride started), loaded her up and all of our stuff in the afternoon, and made the trek down south. Easy drive, beautiful scenery, this will all flow so smoothly! Right? Well...

My problems started at sundown. I went to flip on my lights and realized that the running lights to the trailer were out. They had been out before, then were fixed, and apparently are now un-fixed as they were not working at all. Well crap, I can't run in the dark with a totally unlit trailer... what do I do? I made due by going with my hazards flashing the entire way.... my brake lights were working and the hazards and turn sigals were good, so I at least had all of those! 

Well... nothing else can go wrong, right?

I bypassed the entrance to camp on accident the first go-around. It took me several miles to find a place to turn the trailer around and come back. 

Well... nothing else can go wrong, right?

I pulled into camp after dark, and found no one there to help direct me. There were trailers to the left and trailers to the right, so I just guess and turned left. I found an open spot near some other trailers, up against the fence, and after I parked I realized it was an RV spot. Well... there are lots of other RV spots, so maybe nobody will mind if I am here in my small rig? I set up O's pen, unloaded her and fed her, and settled in. The ride meeting was awkward, seeing as I didn't know anybody and everyone there seemed to know everyone else. I tried to chat a few people up but mostly they were all talking to each other, so I stayed long enough to grab some food and hear which trails I'd be riding, and then I bolted. O was milling around her pen, and I started to settle in for the night. Another big rig came and parked in the last open spot next to me, and then another RV with no trailer attached stopped near my spot and parked there for a long time. I wondered if the RV wanted my spot and was just debating what to do, but nobody ever came to find me and talk to me about it, so when they drove off I breathed a sigh of relief. I decided at around 9 that I better get to sleep, and settled in for the night, setting my alarm at 12 to check on O and make sure she was still eating/in her pen. 

She was in her pen at 12, passed out flat on her side sleeping. Oh good, I thought, and slipped peacefully back off into dreamland. 

At 3am, there was a knock on my window. I woke up, thinking that I surely couldn't have dreamed that and that something must be wrong. I sat up, looked out my window, and saw my pen, all torn down with no horse in it. 

Well.... nothing else can go wrong, right?

Thankfully, she had only busted out of the pen to go loudly converse with the neighbor's horses. This woke the neighbor, who got up, caught my horse, and tied her to my trailer for me. I apologized in my sleepy stupor, fixed the pen, put her back in, and watched her run the fence back and forth for an hour because she now wanted to be with her new friends. I moved all of her hay down to where she could see her friends, and she finally settled down and ate for awhile. It was already around 5am by this point, so I wasn't really going to get much more in the way of sleep, but I did try to doze in the front seat of the truck while waking up every few minutes or so to look at O and make sure she was still where she was supposed to be. I cracked a window and everything to listen to her! (It was 36 degrees. Thank god I had all of my blankets/sleeping bag/layers on.) 

I finally decided I couldn't sleep anymore and went to go check in and show them a copy of my Coggins. The ride manager looked at me, looked at my rig, and said, "Oh... THAT'S you isn't it?" Uh oh... what did I do?

Apparently I parked in the VET'S spot. The RV trying to park there last night was one of the VETS. I was right across from where they were doing the vetting in the arena. OH GOD SO EMBARRASSED. I apologized a million times, and was told it was ok and they had moved the vet elsewhere. I spent the rest of the day feeling totally mortified because I was RIGHT THERE next to the vetbox and everyone could stare at my trailer all day long. 

Well... nothing else can go wrong, right?

(Yea. Guess where I parked.)

Thankfully, from them on out, things really DID smooth out. I'll finish up with Part II tomorrow... right now I am exhausted and need SLEEP!